


The Reverse of Destiny

by squireofgeekdom



Series: Herobard [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barry Allen fucks with the timeline and it actually turns out okay for once, Earth 0, Fix-It, Fuck Destiny, Gen, Happy Ending, Herobard, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 14:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6757246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squireofgeekdom/pseuds/squireofgeekdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why do you hate me so much?"<br/>"I didn't always. I was obsessed with you. For so long, I wanted to be the Flash. I sent years figuring out how you came to be, duplicated the reaction. And it worked. I became like you."<br/>"So what happened?"<br/>"This... ability to travel through time revealed the truth: my fate was to become your greatest enemy. I was never going to be the Flash. So I became the reverse of everything that you were." (Barry Allen & Eobard Thawne, The Flash 2x11, The Reverse Flash Returns)</p><p>"You know, a friend recently suggested to me that there is no such thing as fate.<br/>Destiny is nothing more than the sum of our own choices." (Rip Hunter, Legends of Tomorrow 1x13, Leviathan)</p><p>In which time travel is a gift instead of a curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reverse of Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> All credit for the title goes to Kamemor, who, along with rimahadley, have been instrumental in encouraging this adventure.

The Reverse Flash tears a hole in time, and the Flash jumps after.

This has happened many times. The reverse has happened many times. They have both happened many times in many parts of the multiverse, in many variations on the timeline. 

Every time is different, and this one is no exception. 

This time, the Flash collides with the Reverse Flash. 

This could have killed them in a million different ways, could have left them stranded in the Speed Force, but in this timeline, in this universe, it doesn’t.

This time, the collision only takes them to a time the Reverse Flash had not intended.

Barry lands hard on concrete. When he looks up he thinks his head’s still ringing from the fall because it’s his symbol, his lightning bolt on the edifice above him. 

He doesn’t have time to process before he’s hit again - the Reverse Flash had recovered himself faster than Barry had. Now he has to scramble to get away, get some space, get his bearings. Through the blood coming down from above his eye he can read the words etched into the wall: ‘The Flash Museum’. 

Cisco would certainly appreciate the irony.

Barry doesn’t have much time to appreciate it before he’s fighting again, and through the blur of lightning and punches he makes out a group of people leaving the building. He pulls back, drawing the Reverse Flash away and giving Barry a closer look at the group of people. They’re mostly in their early, mid twenties - except for one, who can’t be more than 17, 18.

The rest of them flee at the sight of the lightning, shouting and yelling and moving so, so slowly to Barry’s eyes - but not him. He’s watching the two of them - watching Barry. 

The Reverse Flash has turned to watch the boy in return - to look around and see where they are. 

Barry can’t tell if it’s the place or the boy, but the Reverse Flash starts to laugh. It’s the scariest thing Barry’s heard. 

Barry runs. 

He’s got the kid in his arms and is trying to get him at least a block out before the Reverse Flash catches them -

(Which is a surprise - he’s never been particularly motivated to cause civilian casualties before, not without a point -

\- unless -

\- unless he wants to make a point about this kid, this kid who had come from the Flash museum, this kid, who, Barry now realizes, is wearing a shirt with his emblem on it)

\- and the Reverse Flash knocks him down - he can’t block while holding the kid, he curls up to protect the kid from the impact -

\- and skids -

\- and the kid the kid he’s still got the kid -

\- and -

His ears are ringing and the kid’s in one arm but there’s a boot on his chest. 

_**“I’m not going to hurt you.”** _ The Reverse Flash says, still vibrating. _**“I’m -”** _

And then the kid jams a stun gun into his leg. 

(It’s been heavily modified, Barry can tell from the casing and from watching the sparks fly. Cisco would love this kid.)

The Reverse Flash steps back - more out of surprise than anything - and Barry can breathe and -

“I’m not going to hurt you,” The Reverse Flash says, and his voice is normal, if half laughing, and his eyes aren’t glowing as he pulls back his hood.

It’s the same face as the kid’s, maybe twenty years older but still unmistakable. The kid clearly recognizes his own face - Barry can feel his sharp intake of breath. 

“Hello, Eobard.”

And Barry’s back on his feet and running with the kid still in his arms, the Reverse Flash right behind him. 

_**“Do you think you can outrun this?”** _ And the Reverse Flash slams him into a wall - Barry curls between the kid and the wall, deadening the impact, and kicks the Reverse Flash in the gut as soon as he has his footing. 

The Reverse Flash laughs, half-panting as he recovers his breath. “I am you. This is who you are.”

 _“Prove it.”_ The kid spits, barely stuttering. “You’re not me.” He adds, hands knotted in the fabric of his t-shirt.

“Oh, I am.” The Reverse Flash says, walking forward. “You can cling to his symbol all you like, but we are both Eobard Thawne, and you will become the reverse of everything he ever was.”

Barry can feel the kid’s breath’s growing more rapid and takes off before the Reverse Flash can say anymore. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, don’t listen -” He says when he slows down enough for the kid to hear him speak. 

“Do you think I don’t remember -” The Reverse Flash is back. Barry hits him across the jaw, and he steps back, spitting blood. “I remember - we cried when the pages of his biography started to fall away from the binding. How we never understood how our brother didn’t care about the golden age of superheroes. Oh, I remember Robern. I know how we resented him.” The kid is shaking his head but he can’t say anything. “You know I’m telling the truth. And so do you, _Flash._ ” The Reverse Flash laughs. “You have your worst enemy at your mercy - you could stop us before we ever become a threat!” At that, the kid goes perfectly still, like a startled rabbit. “But you’d never do that, because you’re the Flash. Aren’t you?” He asks, laughing. “What are you going to do?”

He is the Flash.

And so he runs. 

He sets the kid down several blocks away. “Stay right here, alright? Trust me. Back in a -”

“Flash,” The kid says with him, in unison, slightly dazed. 

He runs - really runs, back at the Reverse Flash, the blocks giving him just enough time to build up the speed he needs to go just fast enough that the added speed of his fist can tear through time, that the equal and opposite reaction will throw him back as it pushes the Reverse Flash forward - or back, he isn’t quite sure where he’s sending him, just that it’s not here.

He hits the cement hard, the Reverse Flash’s laughter still echoing in his ears.

The kid. He has to get back to the kid. 

“Hey --” He says, skidding to a stop - the kid is exactly where he left him. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt? Are you bleeding? Is that blood?” A quick stop to the nearest drugstore - they haven’t actually changed that much - gets him bandages for a few dollars dropped on the counter. “Here -” He crouches down to sit next to him, but he doesn’t want to touch him to bandage him at superspeed without asking. “Let me get that for you?”

The kid snaps his head up when Barry’s reaches out his hand. “Don’t touch me -” He says, shoving Barry away - and then he blinks and looks mortified. 

“It’s alright - your cheek got scraped - sorry about that - do you want to bandage it yourself?” Barry asks, offering the roll of bandage. 

The kid reaches up to touch the blood. “It’s fine,” He says, tucking his now bloody fingers into a fist and pressing them against his thighs, turning his head away.

“Hey. Here, you got this,” Barry says, holding the bandages out again. The kid just stares at them. 

“Are you going to kill me?”

“What?” Barry says, completely nonplussed. “No no, no no no no, no. No! Why would you - no! No, I’m not going to kill you. That’s not - no.”

“I know - you’re the Flash and you can’t just - but you could say it was an accident while you were fighting him - me. While you were fighting _me._ ”

“Hey, hey hey,” The kid’s not looking at him. “Eobard - it’s Eobard, right? Can I call you Eobard? Do you go by a nickname? Eo? Bard? What do your friends call you?”

Eobard shakes his head. 

“Can I call you Bard? My dad always used to read me the Hobbit - Bard was the one who slayed the dragon. Don’t know if you guys still have the Hobbit around here - around now, I guess.”

Eobard nods. 

“Hey, that’s something.” He says, relieved the kid is responding a little. “Listen - you’re not him. That’s not you. Alright?”

“Who is it?”

“Maybe - someone with your name became him in another timeline. That doesn’t mean you’re the same person. I’ve known universes where people who looked like my best friends were super villains, doesn’t mean that’s who my friends were. Or - or who they were going to be.”

Eobard shakes his head. “That’s different universes - you don’t - you don’t know what changed - here it’s - it’s the same universe. Same boundary conditions. You start it all with the same rules and -” He makes a big, all encompassing gesture with his hands and then immediately closes his fists and tucks them against the pockets of his pants. 

“But it’s not.” Barry says. “It’s not the same universe anymore. Not now that I - we came back. Come on,” he adds at the sound of sirens - something else that hasn’t changed that much - pressing the bandages into Eobard’s bloody hands and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here. Er,” He says, glancing around. “You, er, probably know this place better than I do - any place to lay low?”

“The archives.” Eobard says, clearly spooked by the sirens, rummages in his pocket hastily, “I have the key.” He says, turning it over and over in his hand after he’s pulled it out. 

“Okay. How do I get there?”

Eobard closes his eyes, moves his hand up and traces a map. “Two lefts and a right.” 

“Got it. Ready?” Barry asks, holding out an arm. 

“You’re really doing this?”

Barry shrugs. “Wouldn’t want to leave you hanging on the conversation.” He says with a grin as the sirens get louder, and Eobard’s ears go a little pink.

Lightning streaks through the halls of the flash museum, then stops and retraces its steps. “Hang on.” Barry says as they come to a halt in front of a Flash statue. “That’s actually a pretty good likeness? Like, they even got the boots right!” he adds, setting Eobard down beside him, then peers up higher. “Huh. I don’t know, does my chin really look like that?” He asks Eobard with a skeptical tilt of his head.

“I - um - not really, I guess?”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Barry says, shaking his head. He juts out his jaw deliberately, trying to mimic the statue. “More of a Bru - a Batman jaw, really.”

And Eobard starts laughing. 

Barry takes this as a good sign at first, until it keeps going to the point that it seems like Eobard can’t breathe.

“Hey. Hey. Bard. You okay buddy? Deep breaths, alright?” He doesn’t hear any police entering the building - they still must be inspecting the scene outside. But - still.

“You - you -” Eobard starts, still doubled over. “I -” He tugs at his t-shirt, “I’m _here_ talking to _you - the Flash_ \- and - and - you just found out I’m your nemesis and you’re talking about your _chin_?”

“Actually, you can call me Barry. Instead of just _the Flash_. If you want.” Barry says, pulling off his hood. “Barry Allen.” He adds, extending a hand.

Eobard gapes. “Are you - you - you just -”

“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier. Hey -” Barry says, as he starts to hear voices at the front door. “How ‘bout we get over to the archives, huh?”

Eobard’s still gaping at him.

“Yeah. Okay.” 

Barry phases them through the door to the archives and sets Eobard down. 

“Are you - are you out of your _mind_? You - you just gave your _secret identity_ to your _nemesis_.”

“No I didn’t.” Barry says, peering around through the Archive. “I gave it to you.”

Barry takes Eobard’s stunned silence as free time to do some high speed rifling through the Archive files. They’re nothing if not entertaining.

“You really believe it, don’t you?” Eobard finally says. “That this is a different timeline - that you made a different timeline. That I - I’m not - “

Barry shakes his head. “No - not me. I mean, I punched the Reverse Flash out of the time stream so we didn’t end up whenever he was planning, and so we ended up here, and so that - that helped. Now you know. But you’re the one who has to choose what to do now that you know. _You’re_ the one who gets to make a new timeline.”

“And you - you believe I’m going to - to change it? To not be - him?”

“Yeah. I do.” He reaches out, pokes Eobard in the chest, right in the center of the Flash emblem on his shirt. “You’ll choose to be a hero.”

“Like you?”

“Like _you._ ”

Eobard stares at Barry, then down at his shirt. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Alright. Let’s get you bandaged up, then we can get you home. Caitlin would kill me if I left you with that open.”

Eobard reaches up to touch the wound on his cheek - it’s stopped bleeding, and no fresh blood comes away. Gingerly, he presses one of the fresh bandages over it. 

“Keep an eye on that, alright? Make sure it doesn’t get infected. I don’t - I don’t know what you guys use for antibiotics here.” 

“Bacteriophage. They’re in the bandages.”

“Really? That’s super cool, actually. How - actually wait, I shouldn’t know this. I should get you home.”

“What - oh, my apartment. It’s just two blocks from here.”

“Oh - wait.” Barry adds, reaching up to his emblem on his own chest. “As Wally would say: souvenir!” He says, twisting it off and handing it over to Eobard.

“You’re - giving me this?”

“Yeah. I mean, Cisco’ll be pissed, but he’ll get it once I tell him about the stun gun trick.” 

“You’re -”

“To match your shirt, y’know.” There are more voices at the door, and Barry reaches for Eobard, who still has the emblem gripped tightly in his fingers. “Let’s go.”

Lightning crackles, and Barry Allen and Eobard Thawne are gone. 

 

\----

 

Something very, very strange is happening in the pipeline. 

“Dr. Wells, Dr. Morgan, we need you down here right away.” Caitlin says into the comms, as Cisco and Hartley are still boggling over the readings from the accelerator. 

“I don’t know what - no, it’s going away again - see, the signal’s going down.” Cisco says.

“Whatever it is, it’s clos -” Hartley starts, before being cut off by the blur of motion and lightning in the cortex - lightning that very abruptly collides with the arrival of Tess. 

“Ow - oh _grife_ , I’m sorry -” A figure resolves from the blur, getting up from the floor of the cortex and extending a hand to help Tess up. “-I didn’t mean - I -”

“What’s going on?” Dr. Wells’ voice comes sharply from where he’s just wheeled in from the door to the Cortex. “Tess, are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” She says, electricity crackling in her hair.

As Tess stands up, they all get a look at the intruder. What first seemed to be glowing eyes turns out to be reflective goggles, which return to being transparent as the newcomer reaches up and fiddles with them, then abruptly decides to push them up into his blonde hair and reveal a face not much older than Barry’s, late twenties probably. 

He fidgets with black gloves - his uniform is yellow and black, black pants and a broad black triangle at the top reminding Barry a little of the Next Generation Starfleet uniforms - and reaches up to touch the most distinctive part of the outfit, which is Barry’s emblem exactly - except set on a white background. 

“Who are you?” Barry asks. 

The intruder turns and looks at Barry, and his ears go pink. “Uh - ah - I, I didn’t mean to - I mean -” He coughs, looks away, then looks back at Barry. 

“My name is Eobard Thawne, and I’m here to help.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see the Hero!Eobard costume design mentioned here, Kamemor made an AWESOME drawing of the design that's up over on tumblr, and you should really check it out. http://philcoulsonismyhero.tumblr.com/post/143900882341/squireofgeekdom-wrote-this-spectacular-fic-about


End file.
